Smokefoot's Retcon
by meowloudly15
Summary: I'm Smokefoot from ShadowClan, and I've gotta tell you about this one really crazy thing that happened to me back when I was an apprentice. You're probably not gonna believe me, but please give me a chance.


The video opens on a view of a tangle of brambles above a half-a-metre-high cave of sorts. The floor is dirt covered with beds of clumped-together moss and pine needles. The camera shakes slightly. The faint sounds of a microphone being adjusted can be heard off to the right. The black tail of a cat flickers off and on the edge of the frame.

The camera is tilted to the right and adjusted by two dark grey paws. It is set down. A smoky grey tomcat kneads the ground and lies down, his paws crossed in front of him. He looks at the camera with green eyes. His whiskers twitch.

The cat clears his throat and starts to speak. "Uh, hi. I'm Smokefoot. I'm a warrior in ShadowClan, and I'm making this video right now to talk about this one super crazy thing that happened to me when I was an apprentice. I've tried to tell a couple cats about this, but despite all this other crazy divine intervention stuff that's happened – you know, with the Great Battle and all that – nobody thought I was telling the truth. So, uh, yeah. I'm just gonna share my story."

Smokefoot nods anxiously. He clears his throat again. "Okay. All right. Here it is. Let's get started.

"So, you probably know about the Great Journey? You know, when we had to go from the forest all the way up here? To the lake? Well, you probably either were there or got told the story. Yeah, I was there. I was an apprentice at the time. It was nuts. There were giant yellow monsters with shiny claw ends and big black paws that spun around and around. And it was suuuuper loud. Like, really loud. I'm talking so loud, trees were falling over. I don't remember if that was cuz of the monsters or cuz of the really loud loudness. But yeah, it was loud, you get the drift, right?

"All right, well, a bunch of cats a bit older than me from... I think it was all the Clans, but I'm not sure? Well, they went off a bit before we left. Tawnypelt was one of them. She…" Smokefoot drops his eyes, and his nose turns pinker. "Uh, I always kinda thought she was cute. But she's like, too cool. And now she's with what's-his-name, Rowanclaw." He regains his composure. "But yeah. They all went off, and apparently they talked to a badger? A badger that didn't try to kill them or anything? Kinda nuts, huh? Again, I dunno why nobody's believed me. Cuz I swear I thought Rowanclaw used to be a she-cat. Dunno. Maybe Tawnypelt's just… no, never mind, not gonna go into that."

Smokefoot sighs. He readjusts his position.

"So yeah, there's a lot of crazy stuff going down, so we gotta leave. And, to be honest, I miss the forest still, a bit. It was neat. A bunch of frogs. Less trees, though. I like these trees. Definitely don't miss the Carrionplace, though. But let's move on. We've gotta move on, like I said before, and so we head off to find this lake place or whatever?" Smokefoot shrugs. "I wasn't totally sure where we were headed at the time. Nobody was super clear about that. But, hey, anywhere's better than Loudsville.

"So we're trekking along, going through fields and over this one Thunderpath or whatever, and we're now in the mountains. It's like, it's super steep and rocky. And my paws aren't super good with rocks, you know? I don't think anybody's are, to be honest. So I'm having a bit of a rough time with all this. But it's okay. It's tolerable, I guess.

"But there's this little narrow pass that we're all going through, with this super steep dropoff on the side. And it's super narrow. Like, really, really narrow or whatever. Got that? And, well, we're all tired, and we all wanna get off these stupid mountains. And I'm tired, and grumpy, and I'm not really putting one paw in front of the other as carefully as I should be. But I don't really notice." Smokefoot chuckles to himself. "That is, I don't notice until I fall."

Smokefoot takes a moment to wash his face. After about thirty seconds, he turns back to the camera. "So, yeah, I'm falling off the mountain. It's a long fall. A super long one. Like, really long. And I keep falling, you know? And it's just, I'm falling, and falling, and the fall's so long, and I just keep on falling and stuff, and it's going on for a long time, and I'm still falling, and I'm falling off the mountain, and I just keep going down, and I'm falling down, a super long way? You know what I mean? And I'm still going down and down and down, and it's been a long time, going a long way, but I'm still falling and falling and fall-"

Smokefoot's voice cracks. He clears his throat and continues. "Sorry about that. Well, like I said, I'm falling off the mountain. But then, all of a sudden, I'm not falling anymore. And it's not like I hit the ground or anything. Like, the fall just stopped, but it didn't stop abruptly. At least, not so abruptly that it killed me or anything. At least, I don't think I died, or I didn't think so at the time, I guess. But, I guess, I sort of did. But not really. I'll explain, kind of."

Smokefoot pauses to adjust the camera and mic. Some feedback is heard. He begins again.

"This is where it gets super weird. Like, not even Littlecloud believed me. StarClan forbid Tawnypelt hears about this. I mean, it's not like I have a chance with her anyway, but… you know what I mean.

"So I look around, and I can't see any mountains. What I see is this weird place. Everything's got the stink of Twoleg on it. It looks like I'm inside this giant box of some sort. The sides are grey, and the top and bottom are white. There's other stuff in there, mostly shiny but some that's just really colourful. I'm freaking out, kind of, but I'm too scared to move, so I just fluff up my tail and extend my claws and get ready for anything.

"Suddenly, one of the sides moves, and a Twoleg comes in. A female one. She's got this weird grey and black pelt but the fur on her head is creamy, and now I'm really starting to freak out. She sits down on one of these colourful things and starts making weird noises, like claws clicking against rock. And there's this black thing in front of her, but one of the sides is now showing a bunch of bright colours and it's emitting lots of light and it's all really really creepy.

"I wondered if this is what StarClan was like. But then, I thought, no, there aren't any cats here. This…" Smokefoot shivers. "This has gotta be the Dark Forest.

"So I try to run out through the door where the Twoleg came in, because I don't know what else to do. But then the Twoleg turns and looks at me and says, 'Hello, Smokepaw!'

"Of course, I keep freaking out. This is a Twoleg that can speak my language! Just like that one badger that might not actually exist! This is a very creepy, Place-of-No-Stars type of thing to happen! But I'm mostly wondering why she said my name, how she got that right. So I ask her, 'How'd you know my name?'

"She says, 'Because I write about you.'

"I have no idea what writing is. Maybe it's that weird thing that the Twoleg's doing with her light-emitting box and the weird clicking noises. It could be, but I didn't know at the time, and I didn't really care. But…" Smokefoot looks down in embarrassment. "To be honest, this Twoleg didn't seem all that bad. I don't really know what made me trust her, despite the fact that I might be in the Dark Forest. And, well, I asked her what her name was.

"She said her name was Vicki. She told me that she was a writer. She told stories, but she told them through words that could be moved around, not, like, through air or anything, but actually moved, so that the story stayed the same. Of course, I'm still confused, but I know what stories are. Nutwhisker used to tell super awesome stories to all us kits. He never forgot anything that ever happened in one, so he'd always tell it the same awesome way. So maybe this Twoleg, Vicki, is she as good a storyteller as Nutwhisker is? And that's what I was wondering.

"Turns out that she isn't. Vicki told me a ton of super weird stuff, and I don't understand half of it, but this is what I got out of it all, this is what I remember and makes the most sense. So, she's making a story that has me in it. That's weird, right? I don't get that, but that's what Vicki said, and she seems like a nice enough and probably a pretty smart Twoleg, like I said before. And she's writing the story, or however she calls it, and she puts in that I fall off the super tall mountain and I die. But she forgot that, so she put me in the next part of the story, saying that I didn't die, that I eventually got to the lake territories and became a warrior called Smokefoot."

Smokefoot washes his face again. He tilts his head and looks back at the camera.

"That's super duper weird. I still don't understand most of it, but that's what I heard.

"Then, of course, I was weirded out by everything that was going on. So I ran out the door and all of a sudden I was in this unfamiliar area with a ton of pine trees and bracken and stuff like that. And there's a bunch of ShadowClan cats there, all the ones I knew, except they all look a couple moons older. And so do I.

"I kept bumping my head on low stuff for the next two days. That's how I knew I had gotten older and taller.

"Do you know how weird it is to get to a totally unfamiliar place, but you know everybody there? Except for a couple of the newest kits? It's completely off-putting. And I was totally thrown off to know that I was now a warrior named Smokefoot. And that Tallstar was dead and so was Mudclaw and now Onewhisker was Onestar. So Vicki the writer Twoleg… was she telling the truth? Do I really know? Do I really care? Uh… I don't know, no, and kind of.

"So yeah. Well, the reason why I just told this story to all you guys and set it down here in this video, it's cuz I've gotta tell people that I'm not crazy. This really happened. And it happened to me. And I really don't understand it totally. So, uh, if you guys could please, in the comment section below, if you guys could help me understand what the heck is going on with that meeting with this Vicki, please help a fellow cat out."

Smokefoot starts to move towards the camera, but then he thinks of something else.

"Oh, yeah, and don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel. Thanks for all your support so far, guys! Stay frosty!"

Smokefoot approaches the camera and reaches out with a paw. The video ends.


End file.
